Daniel Cormier: I Probably Shouldn’t Have Fought Derrick Lewis

UFC heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier believes fighting Derrick Lewis may have contributed to his long absence from the Octagon.

Cormier was expected to defend his title against Brock Lesnar in March for his retirement fight. However, he would first defend his title against Lewis at UFC 230 in November as the event’s short-notice main event.

“DC” would win the fight comfortably, submitting Lewis in the second round. However, he later revealed he blew his back on the morning of the fight after sneezing and almost considered pulling out.

Meanwhile, the Lesnar fight never came to fruition with the WWE star retiring from MMA late last month.

And so, Cormier is now scheduled to face former champion Stipe Miocic in a rematch that will headline UFC 241 on August 17. It will mark nine months since he last fought and the heavyweight king explained why it’s taken him so long.

“The reason I haven’t fought, and the reason I didn’t fight in March, was because I had back surgery in December,” Cormier said on Ariel Helwani‘s MMA Show (via BJ Penn). “When I was about to fight Derrick Lewis, and I was telling you guys all how I sneezed and how my back was so jacked I didn’t know what was going on.

“It was so bad that about a week later – two weeks later, I started having pain going down my hip. So I was like, ‘Yo, what’s going on with my hip?’ And I would travel, then right around Christmas, I went to Milwaukee for that last Fox show because I was like, ‘I have to do it, last time I’m gonna work for Fox’. Even though my hip was bothering me.

“And then Cain [Velasquez] was gonna fight [Francis] Ngannou [in February] and I went in to try and help him, and I mean, I barely did anything. My back was bothering me so bad, the next morning I couldn’t even walk. I had a disc that was bulging out of my back and sitting on my sciatic nerve. It was out two inches of the chamber that holds the disc in. Two inches the disc was out – I couldn’t even walk. Deron Winn actually had to carry me out of my house and into my truck to take me all around to see doctors because my wife was having to deal with my children. It was bad.”

Considering how Cormier still managed to outclass Lewis with a compromised back, his win is all the more impressive.

But in hindsight, it probably would have been best health-wise if he didn’t face Lewis that night.

“I would have fought in March if I was healthy,” Cormier added. “I probably really shouldn’t have fought Derrick Lewis.”